Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau defended the government’s emergency measures for angry farmers on Sunday, while recognizing that “serenity” would “not necessarily” be there at the trade fair in Paris from February 24, “When we are a public official, we must also accept to confront what are sometimes quarrels and people who come to remind us of promises or remind us of demands”, declared Marc Fesneau during of the show “Questions Politiques” on France Inter, where he was questioned about the possibility of being “heckled”.
“I am not necessarily saying that the show will take place in conditions of serenity,” he affirmed, after having defended the responses provided by the government after the 10 days of agricultural crisis and blockades which crossed France at the beginning of February. “We have significantly accelerated” and “implemented the announcements which had been made by Gabriel Attal, the emergency measures”, justified the minister, citing the funds created or supplemented to reduce the taxation of breeders, to help those of cattle affected by epizootic haemorrhagic disease, viticulture, organic cultivation, etc.
“I don’t have the impression that the work will stop after the show”
Farmers have so far obtained 400 million euros in emergency aid, administrative simplifications and European concessions on fallow land. But they are not yet satisfied and are awaiting new decisions between now and the opening of the annual show, announced in a heated climate.
“Let us also recognize that there are issues that are long-term, that remuneration is a subject that remains unresolved for a certain number of farmers,” defended the minister. “So the political responsibility is not to flee, it is to say ‘this is what we have done, this is what we are going to do, and then these are undoubtedly (the things) on which we need to listen to you'”, declared the minister who was eagerly awaited by the professionals in the aisles of the show. “I don’t have the impression that the work will stop after the show,” assured the minister.
Minister MoDem also criticized the National Rally, which appears close to certain demands of the Rural Coordination, of proposing “an autarkic model”, a “withdrawal on our borders”, while a “large part of French productions ( …) are exported to the Italians, to the Spanish, to the Poles. “So national preference in the European area is the death of French agriculture,” warned Marc Fesneau.